


Feeling Like Death

by MinMaxSpeech



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Just following Rhys’ thoughts, Set after Helios’ Fall, mentions of jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 15:51:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinMaxSpeech/pseuds/MinMaxSpeech
Summary: Rhys... has won. Jack’s control is gone. But that leaves two simple questions. What to do with the eye, and what to do after?





	Feeling Like Death

The wreckage of Helios surrounded Rhys. The fall of Hyperion, a company that had taken everything from him, and given him nothing in return, should be something that would make him happy. But… it didn’t. Rhys felt nothing. Well, aside from pain. There was a lot of pain. A glance around reaffirmed exactly where he was stood- the remnants of the legendary Handsome Jack’s office. Rhys almost laughed. There was a time when Rhys idolised Jack. When the sociopath was even a hero for Jack. But that was long ago.

Now, all Rhys felt for Jack was pity, and disgust. Fiona and Sasha were… less than trustworthy, put nicely, but they were his friends. And these were the ‘bandits’ he wanted to massacre? To quite literally burn until there was nothing, and build cities out of the ashes with his face slapped upon every wall? And Jack thought he was the hero. The one sane person amongst a crowd of the insane. It was amusing, the only man on Pandora claiming to be sane was arguably the single craziest. Psychos, for all their many, many, many flaws (Rhys wasn’t sure he’d ever enjoy pizza again) were at least upfront about their insanity. 

Jack? Jack was a far more complex, and dangerous beast. And when he was an AI, no longer even bound by physical form? The damage he could wreak was… limitless. With Helios at his command, Jack was a threat. But to imagine him finding a way into the ECHO-net? The thought legitimately terrified Rhys. He could have ended Pandora with a mere thought. Killed everyone in that mythical Sanctuary by simply dropping them out of the sky. It wouldn’t even be hard, Rhys mused. But Jack was a man of petty grudges, and large ideas. If Jack had wanted to simply raise Pandora to the ground, there would have been far more efficient ways to do it than resurrecting an ancient alien warrior. 

Helios had enough weaponry that if Jack so desired, he could have destroyed Sanctuary, and perhaps even Pandora, simply with Loader Bots and by raining explosions from the moonbase, whilst enjoying a coffee. But Jack wasn’t like that. He was fiercely intelligent, and a master of manipulating people, Rhys was aware, but he was far from the most sensible person. Which made him even more dangerous.

Rhys glanced down, to the item clasped in his fist. It was his ECHO-eye. The last form that Handsome Jack had. He could pocket the eye, and simply store Jack away in some vault, somewhere. It wouldn’t be hard. Jack’s body was around the size of a coin, and without outside help, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. But that was what worried Rhys more than anything. “Outside help.” Jack’s followers could be utterly fanatical. And would not be above besieging a base of an old employee of Jack for his last form. If Jack was left to live, he would escape. At some point. Perhaps not in a day, or a month, or a year, or even a decade. But Jack would escape.

Rhys nodded to himself, reaffirmed in what he was about to do. Holding the eye in the palm of his hand, Rhys crushed it, the sensitive technology breaking apart in his hand. Pieces of the eye fell to the floor as he did so, laying with the destroyed ruins of the office that Jack had called his own. Fitting that he would be laid to rest there. Rhys, confident that the eye was irreparably destroyed, opened his hand, scattering the pieces over the ashes and ruins. A small grin crossed his features. Not a triumphant one, but one that signified that Rhys was merely happy to be alive. It was an upgrade from being the zombie puppet of a Jack mech, at least. 

A glance at his physical state told him everything he needed. Put in the least eloquent terms possible- he was fucked up. His cybernetic arm was impaled on a spike a few meters away, the technology in his temple was discarded on the ground- Rhys stamped on that a number of times, destroying that as well. Rhys couldn’t risk Jack’s return. It was… bizarre. Rhys should feel something over killing a man, someone he idolised. All he felt was… a crazy sense of happiness. Not that he’d killed Jack, but that he was alive to tell the tale of it. Rhys gave a gentle kick to a nearby piece of Jack propaganda- a poster. If the man himself was in charge of Helios, even his original self, he would have likely been executed for the act of simply touching it. It made Rhys chuckle. 

Rhys’ attention turned to something else entirely- Jack’s trophy collection. It was bizarre that this of all things survived the crash in a nearly immaculate state, Rhys mused. Limping over to the items, Rhys elected to have a look. He noticed the Conference Call Shotgun that Jack had mentioned to him. Attempting to pick it up, Rhys found the weight too immense, and simply left it where it was. He noticed a second item, one that was something he was able to pick up, fortunately. His hand closed around the deeds to Atlas. It was a single piece of paper, but holding it gave him the right of ownership to every single Atlas facility in the universe. With this, a single piece of paper, he could rebuild Atlas. He could make it good, he could make it a group of peace. To learn from Dahl, to learn from Hyperion, to learn from Atlas’ old self, and to become better.

Lifting the deed, Rhys slipped it away within his tattered jacket, and smiled to himself. Glancing around, he felt confident for the first time that things might actually end well. He remembered that Cassius and Vaughn were still somewhere. He needed to find them, or at least the nearest Atlas facility. Spinning his stun-baton in his hand, Rhys began to limp away, into a new future.


End file.
